#1572 – Prequels Holy Week: Holy Tuesday

It’s Holy Week! My church really didn’t do much with Holy Week when I was growing up. I never even attended a Good Friday service until I was in seminary. I still attend/work at a Baptist church, but we do have some liturgical tendencies. I look forward to our Good Friday service every year and I’ve enjoyed reflecting on Holy Week here at The Christian Nerd.

This year we’re going to enter into Holy Week through the lens of the Star Wars prequels. I know that the prequels get their fair share of hate, some of it well deserved. However, I love Star Wars and that love applies to the prequels as well. I am very much aware of their flaws, yet I still love them.

So hopefully you can put your potential hatred for the prequels aside and get ready for Holy Week by looking at the adventures of Anakin and Obi-Wan.

Holy Tuesday is mostly observed in the Eastern Orthodox Church. On Holy Tuesday we reflect upon the Parable of the Ten Virgins from Matthew 25. In the parable ten virgins are waiting for the return of the bridegroom. Five of the virgins brought enough oil for their lamps and five didn’t. While the five who didn’t go to find more oil, the bridegroom returns and the five who forgot their oil are left outside.

The parable is about being ready for Jesus’ return. He has promised that he’s coming back and we need to be ready. Unfortunately, we don’t always live our lives like Jesus is coming back. Most days I go through my day thinking about what I need to do next, not necessarily that Jesus could come back at any moment.

Like the five virgins without the oil, the Jedi were unprepared as well. Order 66 snuck up on the Jedi Order and they never saw it coming. The Jedi had been fighting alongside their clone troopers for years and had never thought to question the loyalty of those troopers. Yet when that order came down and all of those loyal troopers turned their blasters on their Jedi leaders, an era ended. The end of the Jedi ushered in the beginning of the Empire, a period of darkness and oppression.

If we’re not prepared for Jesus’ return, then we could end up in an even worse place than that galaxy far, far away. Jesus is returning to transform this world and usher in the new heaven and earth. We can either be a part of that or separated from God for eternity. The Jedi weren’t ready for Order 66. We can’t be unprepared for Jesus’ return.